Fear Is the Enemy of Truth
May 26, 2015 16:45

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. - 1 Peter 5:8

Last night I came across an article written 14 years ago by a Christian woman who had an abortion when she was 6 months pregnant. I urge you to read it here and then follow along with me.

The situation was tragic—there were twins, a wanted pregnancy after several miscarriages, health problems with the babies, and a potential health risk for the mother. The story had almost everything that advocates champion as a rationale for abortion. It even brought prayer and a pastor into the mix. My heart cried out to this woman whose struggles were familiar to me. My husband and I miscarried three children. Our pregnancy with twins had its fair share of anxiety, too. But what impacted me most about her story were the points of surrender, not to God, but to an ideology—the ideology that abortion is an act of a loving mother, that it is compassionate, that it was, regrettably, her only option. She was devastated. She was afraid. And fear is the enemy of truth.

Surrender #1: The hopeless prognosis

Even though this mother adamantly rejected abortion at first, fear crept in and settled deep. The prognosis wasn’t good. The babies were probably suffering. If one died, it would likely cause the death of the other. They may not live much longer. Continuing the pregnancy might put the mother’s health at risk…Probably. Likely. May. Might. The truth is: Studies published in Prenatal Diagnosis, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Journal of Medical Ethics all point to the impact physicians have on an abortion decision where there is fetal anomaly. Many women report feeling pressured, rushed, and misinformed. Did she?

Surrender #2: The quality of life lie

Even if one baby survived, her quality of life remained a fear-filled unknown. “It didn’t seem right to bring her into the world with such bleak prospects,” the mother recounts. “To me, giving her the most life meant releasing her to heaven rather than have her suffer here on earth.” I wonder who told her that. The doctors? Her husband? Her pastor? The abortionist who had considered killing one to save the other? The truth is: quality of life is completely subjective. Who is it that exalts themselves so much that they decide how much suffering is acceptable, for whom, and for how long?

Surrender #3: A misunderstanding of God

This is perhaps the most heartbreaking part of this story. She and her husband prayed and believed God would heal their babies, “but instead,” she says, “the new prognosis was even grimmer than we had anticipated.” So they stopped praying. They stopped believing. They didn’t understand that God’s ways are not our ways. They assumed that if God decided not to heal in that moment, then He was just turning things over to them to figure out. The truth is: He hadn’t abandoned them. He hadn’t abandoned their babies. But fear can make even the most faithful people lose their way.

Certainly, there were other contributing factors in this story: the pastor’s failure of leadership, the church community’s lack of courage, her husband’s misguided advice. Not to mention that no one told her about the partial birth abortion procedure—how violent it is, how the babies would suffer, how much it would hurt. No, because maybe that would have been the sliver of truth that awakened her to the reality of abortion. The reality that her precious babies, regardless of how long they would live or God’s plan for their lives, were about to become victims of the ultimate system of fear. Just like she was.

And fear is the enemy of truth.

~ Sarah Quale

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To march hastily into a battle of such significance and duration is folly, just as it is folly to be unaware of its depth and breadth. In other words, to partner with God however He calls us into pro-life work, we must first take the time to know who the Enemy is and exactly what he is doing.